


It's in the water

by Lenna



Category: Runaways (TV 2017), deanoru - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/F, deanoru - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 07:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16058858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenna/pseuds/Lenna
Summary: Nico breaks away from her life and leaves Los Angeles behind. Soon, she finds herself teaching at a little town in Montana, making new friends, and slowly falling for the pride and joy of Thompson Falls.





	It's in the water

**Author's Note:**

> A few months ago I got a prompt on Tumblr asking for a Deanoru teachers AU, so here it is. I was planning on writing just a short one-shot, but in the end I decided to split it in two.   
> As always, this is unbeta'd and all mistakes are mine.  
> Also, I'd appreciate if you give me some love in the comments ;D

For the first time in years, Nico lets herself breathe. Really breathe.

When she gets off that bus, taking the first step in that little town lost in the middle of the mountains, the weight she’s been carrying on her shoulders for the last six years doesn’t feel so heavy anymore.

Nico doesn’t regret leaving her life behind, in fact, it might be the best decision she’s ever made, but that doesn’t mean that changing the busy streets of the big city, for the calm and silent forest surrounding Thompson Falls, Montana, isn’t a challenge.

“Hey!”

She turns around at hearing someone shouting, just to find a short woman, with glasses and purple hair, running towards her.

“Hi,” She says with a smile, reaching out with her hand to greet Nico, while trying to recover her breath, “I’m Gert. You must be Nico?”

“Yeah.” She shakes hands with the other woman, but a bit weary of the stranger.

“Great! Mom sent me to get you. She said you’ll be staying with us until you find a place?

“Wait, you are Principal Yorkes’ daughter?”

 

+++

 

Gert is nice. A bit too talkative and friendly for her taste, but nice. And she seems genuine, which is refreshing. When they arrive at the Yorkes’ house, she gives Nico a quick tour around the small house, and then she lets her get comfortable in her new bedroom. Gert says that she understands that it was a long journey, and that she’ll let Nico rest for a while, with a promise of a good coffee and a visit to the town later.

_“There isn’t much to see around here, but you should know where to buy your groceries and stuff.”_

The room is larger than she expected, and the bed extremely comfortable, so much that once she drops her bag on the floor and her body on the mattress, Nico falls asleep almost instantly.

+++

Later that afternoon, as promised, the woman takes her out to a little coffee shop where they meet with Gert’s fiancé. Chase is also a teacher at the school where Nico’s going to work, and Gert thought it would be great that she already knew someone before she had to start teaching there.

“So, what made you choose this little town in the middle of nowhere?”

Maybe it’s the way these two strangers feel already so familiar after just a few hours, but Nico almost, _almost_ tells them everything that led her to leave Los Angeles behind. Fortunately, she manages to keep it to herself.

“I needed a change,” She just says.

“I can understand that,” Chase replies with a smile that makes her wonder why this man is a simple small town teacher, when he could be easily be at the cover of every national magazine, “A few years ago, I was in need of a change, too. My life was too chaotic and meaningless so, one day, I decided to jump on my car with just a backpack and no destination in mind. I wandered around the country for a while, until I reached this little town the first day of the Lights Festival, and I never left after that.”

“He thinks it was fate,” Gert interrupts.

“Well, we met that night.”

“Yeah, you also met Karolina, which is the real reason why you stayed,” She retorts before turning towards Nico, “He had a crush on her for months. I don’t blame him, though. You have to be blind to not crush on the girl the moment you meet her. Hell, even I had a crush on her for a while when we were teenagers.”

“Who’s Karolina?” Nico asks, intrigued.

 

+++

 

Nico doesn’t have to wait long. She meets Karolina Dean on her first day at the school, and Nico understands the moment she lays her eyes on the blonde goddess why Gert said that everyone that knows Karolina is a little bit in love with her.

Karolina is tall, although everyone with an average height looks like a giant to Nico. She’s wearing a pair of comfy jeans with a plain, light pink shirt, and her hair is in a sided messy braid. But what really makes Nico stumble on her first words to the girl, is the intensity of the ocean that she finds in a pair of curious eyes.

“Stacey told me we were going to have a substitute after Mr. Perkins had to take a long-term sick leave, but I wasn’t expecting someone all the way from California!” Karolina says, excitedly, after Principal Yorkes introduces them, “I hope you like our little town?”

The woman’s smile is so blindingly stunning that Nico seems to forget how to speak English, because the next word that leaves her mouth is in Japanese.

“ _Kirei…_ ”

“What?”

Karolina is staring at her with a frown in her otherwise perfect face, and Nico realizes what she just said.

“I mean, the town, it’s... eh... beautiful, you know? For a town,” Nico is babbling, she’s very aware of that fact, but it really doesn’t matter because Karolina is smiling again, “Sorry, sometimes my Japanese just slips out of my mouth without consent when I’m...”

“Nervous?” Karolina finishes for her.

“Yeah...”

This is something that never happened to Nico before. Being rendered speechless by someone she’s just met. Maybe it’s because she’s never had in her life anyone staring at her with so much warm and candour in their eyes, but it throws her off balance and, for a moment, makes her forget everything that went wrong in her life.

“Well, don’t worry,” Karolina says, reaching to squeeze Nico’s arm lightly as a reassuring gesture, “Everyone is allowed to be nervous on their first day. You’ll do great.”

Before Nico can dig a bigger hole for herself telling Karolina that she’s not, in fact, nervous about that, Principal Yorkes clears her throat, reminding the other two women that they aren’t alone, something that they seem to have forgotten completely. Right then, the bell for the first period rings and the bubble Nico has been in disintegrates.

“Time to meet your new students, Miss Minoru,” Stacey says, guiding her towards the door of her classroom, “Ready?”

“As much as I can be.” Then she turns towards Karolina, and with a hesitant smile, she asks, “See you later... uhm... maybe?”

Karolina, delighted, grins back at her.

“Definitely.”

 

+++

 

Chase finds her before lunch and takes her to the teachers’ lounge, where he introduces Nico to the rest of the staff. After a few minutes, she feels a bit overwhelmed and excuses herself to the bathroom.

She’s going back to the room, refreshed and more relaxed, when her eyes catch Karolina with a few kids a couple of doors ahead, talking animatedly with them. The children seem excited about whatever they’re saying, while the teacher has a big smile on her face the whole time.

“I’ve heard that you’ve already met our town’s official ray of sunshine today.” Chase stands by her side, crossing her arms and smiling fondly at the scene in front of them, “And I have to say that she seemed quite smitten with you when she told me about it.”

“What?” Nico turns her head to stare at him in confusion.

Chase leans down a little and smirks.

“She’s single.” He whispers at her ear.

“Good for her,” Nico answers, nonchalantly.

“Oh, come on,” Chase insists, “All those black clothes and that broody attitude won’t fool anyone. You should have seen the way you were looking at her a minute ago.”

“I’ll admit that she’s…”

“Pretty?” Chase interrupts.

Karolina choses that exact moment to look up from the children, finding the other girl’s eyes on her. The intense blue of those eyes is something that Nico is sure she’ll be dreaming about.

“Mesmerizing,” Nico answers, finally, then she just shakes her head, “But I’m not interested. We literally just met.”

“I give you a month, tops,” He says with confidence, “But I should warn you. Gert is on the case.”

“Something tells me that I should be worried about that.”

“Oh, yeah. You totally should.”

 

+++

 

The first week on the job is great. The kids are much easier to handle that back at her old school, and the other teachers seem nice enough, nicer that she would have liked sometimes, even. She spends her free time between the little apartment near the school she finally moved to, and the coffee shop that Gert showed her the day she arrived at Thompson Falls. The place is quiet, the coffee is pretty good, and it has this little secluded corner where she can spend hours without being bothered by anyone.

That is, until Karolina Dean enters the coffee shop one afternoon and her eyes immediately zoom in on Nico. Their eyes meet, just for a split of a second before Nico lowers hers back to the book in her lap, but it’s enough to encourage the other woman to approach her once the barista handles the coffee to her.

Karolina walks towards the little corner with her usual smile in place, and Nico thinks that is unfair how that alone makes her heart skip a beat.

It’s been a week, _a week_ , since the first day they met at school, but Nico can’t seem to get that smile and those damn blue eyes out of her head. It’s almost like she’s fallen under the same spell that has the whole town enamoured of the girl.

“Why are you hiding back here?”

Karolina’s question is accompanied by a spark in her eyes, and Nico, unable to do anything else, just shows her the book in her hands and shrugs nonchalantly.

“It’s a nice place to read.” She answers without really meeting the other woman’s eyes.

“The Falls mysteries?” Karolina takes the book from Nico and giggles, _giggles,_ while reading the tittle.

“Gert gave it to me,” She explains, taking the book back from the girl’s hands and leaning back against the chair. Karolina just smiles and sits in front of her at the table, “She said something about me needing to learn about the town’s history if I was going to stay.”

“And are you?”

“Am I what?” Nico asks, confused.

“Going to stay.”

“Well… t-that’s the plan…” She replies nervously, because Karolina leans over the table, letting her head rest casually on her hand, and stares expectantly at Nico, “At least for the school year.”

“Have you left anyone behind at the big city that you’d want to go back to?”

“No one important, not really,” She’s taken aback by her own sincerity, but she doesn’t seem to be able to control her mouth around Karolina, “Just bad memories.”

Then, the other woman just extends her free arm and reaches for one of Nico’s hands resting over the book at the table to squeeze it.

“Well, it’s their loss.”

 

+++

 

A month passes almost without Nico realizing.

She’s used now to the kids waving at her while she walks around Thompson Falls. Apparently, in the few weeks she’s been at the school, Nico has gained a reputation of being a cool, laidback, not-scary-at-all teacher, and being from California kind of made her even more interesting for them. So, she waves back, and even gives them half a smile from time to time.

Things with Karolina are… weirdly nice.

Since that day at the coffee shop they seem to gravitate towards each other every time they are in the same room, which mortifies Nico, but is something that Karolina seems to be enjoying so far. It’s not that Nico is uncomfortable around the other girl, it’s quite the opposite; she’s _terrified._ One thing is admitting to herself that she’s attracted to Karolina, because who wouldn’t, right? She’d have to be blind. No…, what actually scares her is how _good_ she feels around the other teacher, how much she makes Nico smile, and how her heart skips a beat every time Karolina founds her at that corner at the coffee shop.

It shouldn’t be so easy, or so soon, her heart shouldn’t even work properly after what happened with Alex, but here she is, staring across the room at the most gorgeous woman she’s ever met and wondering if…

“…so, are we doing anything fun tonight?”

“What?” Nico asks, confused at the half sentence that just came out of Gert’s mouth.

They’ve been sitting at the teacher’s room for a while. Gert had a meeting with her mother about some new project for the school, and when she was about to leave, she saw Nico going for a coffee and decided to join her.

Ten minutes into the conversation, Karolina and another teacher had walked into the room, and Nico has been distracted since then.

“Could you just stop staring at Karolina and pay attention to me for a second?” Gert feigns being offended by Nico’s blatantly ignoring her, “She won’t disappear if you stop looking at her for a minute, you know?”

“I wasn’t…”

“Yeah, no,” Gert interrupts her, “Don’t even finish that sentence because we both know it’s a lie.”

“Okay, okay, I’m listening know. What were you saying?”

“Thanks. As I was saying, today is your one month anniversary of being here, so I was asking if you wanted to do something fun tonight.” Seeing Nico’s reluctance to answer, Gert insists, “Come oon, you can even meet my sister. She came back yesterday.”

“She doesn’t live here?”

“Nah, Molly had dreams too big for this little town,” Gert explains, “She just finished a tour, so she’ll probably be staying here until the Lights Festival. But let’s not change the subject here. Tonight, pick you up at eight?”

Nico, sensing that she’s not going to be able to escape, just sighs and leans back in her chair.

“And what is exactly that you do for fun here?”

Gert just smirks and that is what  _really_ scares Nico.


End file.
